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Hello Bright Minds, I have a completely wonderful powerhouse for you today who returned from maternity leave eight months ago. Her dream job came up whilst she was away so she decided to return six months early and on day two of her comeback there was a wholescale restructure of the entire business which changed everything. She’s just returned from a company celebration trip to Miami in recognition of her being one of the business’ peak performers and I think you’re going to love her. She had a brutal birthing experience which left her in awful shape mentally and physically so to see and hear her glowing now is an absolute joy. You’re about to listen to Lucy Watkins, Head of Productivity, Programs & Enablement at Salesforce.

REFERENCES FROM OUR CONVERSATION

• Lucy Watkins on LinkedIn
• Lucy's playbook
• Tim Ferris podcast episode I referenced
• Therapeutic journaling podcast episode
• Lucy's meditation coach
• The PT Lucy worked with

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

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Hello Bright Minds, my guest coachee today is Emilia, which isn’t her real name. She’s been an avid listener of the podcast and got in touch about having a coaching session to support her in making a lateral move in a large multinational healthcare company. Not long after we arranged to speak she e-mailed to say her line manager was going to be leaving and could we talk about how she navigates shifting from peer to boss in her current team on an interim boss.

There was so much ground we could have covered and the 45 minutes whizzed by. Emilia has got several significant professional transitions running in parallel which could be overwhelming if she expects too much of herself at once. She’s dealing with the fallout from an authoritarian boss; she’s navigating moving from being a peer to being the boss, all the time knowing it might be temporary; she’s also needing to be considered about how she enters her new peer group and lastly she’s attempting to limit the impact the new role will have on her family. It’s a lot of effort, a lot of thinking and all on top of delivering the things she previously delivered – with a smaller team. If I were the HR Business Partner of Emilia’s part of the business I would be talking to her about sponsoring executive coaching to support her over the next 6-9 months.

As ever I hope you get something useful from eavesdropping on this one time coaching conversation. It’s recorded in one take so what you hear is exactly how the conversation played out.

I referenced an article I wrote titled Promoted into a new peer group? 5 actions to settle quickly.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

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Hello Bright Minds, today I’m talking to Danielle Wallington who lives in St Albans, the place I’ve called home for 23 years. Danielle was an events manager who had her flexible working request turned down after maternity leave with her first son. From that setback came her first business “Milk & Fizz” where she used to her events management skills to bring mothers together for a different type of gathering to what was on offer at the time. She’s now the founder of Flock Here – a social networking app that connects women who work from home to places to work from and people to work with. She’s been through some massive setbacks in the business which is why I wanted to bring you this conversation. Self-employment isn’t an easy choice and it’s not for everyone and this is a chat you’re going to get a lot from if you work for yourself and have small children or if you’re wondering about self-employment as an option; if you’re a woman working in events or if you’re needing to hear a tale of grit to boost your own motivation.

If you’re a long time listener you’ll know that COMEBACK COACH is part of a broader package of support: the Comeback Community employee experience. It’s a blend of online resources, coaching, live expert Q&As, career development tools and line manager support that we deliver in many large and small organisations that who want to support their returning colleagues and get them feeling comfortable back in their roles as smoothly and swiftly as possible. Find out more and help us start a conversation with your HR team at www.comebackcommunity.co.uk/introduce.

REFERENCES

Flock Here

Danielle on LinkedIn

Kings Global Institute for Women’s Leadership events

Gender differences in the association between unpaid labour and mental health in employed adults: a systematic review

How I built this podcast with Guy Raz

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is 53 year old journalist Samantha Downes, who last year took up the post of senior news reporter at The Express after many years working freelance. She joined The Express in November after specialising in pensions and investment journalism as an investigative reporter for both trade and national publications including the Financial Times, City AM, and Pensions Expert.

She’s a mother of two teenage girls and writes about midlife, parenting and money issues for her own substack. She’s written two books and has another underway and is also a financial commentator on TV and radio. We met a couple of months ago at the House of Lords at a breakfast hosted by another podcast guest, Baroness Helena Morrissey – episode 102 – to launch a report about the gender ISA gap.

I think you’ll love Samantha’s honesty about returning to employment and her raw self-reflections about ambition. I really could have listened to her for much longer than we had time for and at the end of the episode I share my thoughts on why and how mothers careers come in and out of bloom – and it’s not to do with the age of their children.

References

The power of small wins – HBR article by Teresa Amabile & Steven Kramer.

Visualisation podcast episode with Maya Raichoora.

ADHD & Hormones - episode 207 of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing podcast with Kate Moryousef.

Danna Greenberg paper - Identity and the Transition to Motherhood: Navigating Existing, Temporary, and Anticipatory Identities.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

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Hello Bright Minds, I wonder whether you’ve seen the Netflix hit Buying London with Daniel Daggers and his team of agents at his property firm DDRE? It’s a lot of fun and very glamorous and my guest today is one of the team who you won’t have seen on screen. I met Serge Cowan on a flight to Nice last September when he was going out to look at a property in Monaco and we got into a deep conversation about his life, including his four children. Serge is a global real estate advisor at DDRE who has sold properties in 27 locations and deals with DDREs international sales. Serge’s 16 year old daughter Emily makes an occasional entertaining double act with him on Instagram and there’s a link in the show notes.

In 2002 Serge set up a property business which he told me he felt like he was married to. His wife worked with him too and alongside their professional life they spent five years trying to have a child. In 2007 along came baby Maddie who was born with cerebral palsy who very sadly passed away in 2017. Maddie’s early years also coincided with the recession of 2009-2012 which hammered the business Serge had built. By 2018, a year after Maddie’s death he realised the marriage wasn’t right and their divorced was finalised in 2024.

You’re going to hear us talk about:

• A father’s perspective of the strain and emotional difficulty of raising a profoundly disabled child.
• Battling the SEN system and local education authority for a child with cerebral palsy.
• His marriage coming to an end and walking away from the business he’d built
• Serge’s experience of ‘chronic anxiety’
• Negotiating with French estate agents

I hope you enjoy and extract something useful from my chat with Serge.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

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Hello Bright Minds, today I’m talking to Baroness Helena Morrissey, ex CEO of Newton Asset Management, founder of the 30% Club and founding ambassador of AJ Bell’s Money Matters campaign to help women feel good about investing. She’s also the mother of nine children and author of A Good Time to Be a Girl.

• We talk about how to ask for a promotion and the power of holding silence when you do.
• The gender ISA gap, pensions and investing for children.
• Helena’s experience of returning to work after nine maternity leaves.
• The psychology of what we wear at work.
• Helena’s top tips for returning to work after a break.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

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Hello Bright Minds, today I’m talking to Francesca Woodhouse who is the MD of UK Workplace Advisory at Edelman and mother of four children. She works full time and is married to Lewis who also works full time as a Head of Communications. You’re going to hear Francesca talk about:

• The need to proactively managing your career.
• Moving between freelancing and employment.
• Key habits that support working full time and caring for four children.
• The difference having a true partner at home makes to your life.
• Francesca’s experience of being a disgruntled middle manager.

Before we glide into the conversation with Francesca, three thank yous to listeners who’ve left a review of COMEBACK COACH on Apple Podcasts since the last episode:

Simone wrote: “Wonderful podcast on the realities of corporate career life. Always get great inspiration and some actionable tips to try out.”

Lizi left this review: “I really enjoy listening to the podcast and hearing how other women manage the career and family juggle but mainly I just love hearing Jesica’s take on the world. It’s impossible not to feel uplifted, energised and inspired listening to her.”

And thank you to Geeko1003 who says: Jessica expertly navigates the emotional and performance issues for everyone at work. The tools, tips, and insights help to create an inclusive workplace.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, in this episode we go beyond the comeback and discuss the habits, resources, ways of working and ways of thinking that help support career development when you have young children.

We recorded this episode in front of a live audience at Arcadis, London - one of our treasured clients.

My guests are all professional women who have 13 children between them and they've all previously been on the podcast. They were tremendously candid for which I am truly grateful.

• Emmie Faust – exited founder, investor and founder of Female Founders Rise. Past coachee of Jessica. COMEBACK COACH past podcast guest episode 52.
  
  
• Amanda Newman – Accenture. COMEBACK COACH past podcast guest episode 21.
  
  
• Rachel Maguire – Earl Kendrick. COMEBACK COACH past podcast guest episode 19.
  
  
• Liz Twiney – BlackRock. Past coachee of Jessica. COMEBACK COACH past podcast guest episode 13.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace